"Microsoft revealed today that it plans to launch the highly anticipated 'Consumer Preview' version of Windows 8 on February 29th. The company will hold an event at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on February 29th to launch the Windows 8 Consumer Preview between 3PM and 5PM (CET)." Still haven't seen any indication they've addressed the core issues with Metro (no window management, no real applications). If they don't, this release will be entirely useless to anyone who uses computers beyond Facebook, weather applications, and Twitter.

What would Photoshop look like as a touch app? It's the same problem. Metro seems to be intended for the touch/tablet/mobile scenarios. Photoshop in its current form wouldn't work in iOS, Android, or Metro.

I still think everyone is missing the boat on this - there won't be any apps like Photoshop or Visual Studio for Metro for a very long time. I'm not saying never, I'm saying that in Windows 8 Metro will not be fleshed out enough to support it effectively, and even if it were the OEMs are going to be stand-offish about porting large, complex applications to the new apis until it has had the tires kicked for a while.

Not trying to say it is half-baked, merely that the focus is really to make a UI for the same type of applications people run on tablets, primarily consumption apps and simple productivity apps. Its going to take 3rd parties a long time to figure out how to leverage the Metro UI effectively - the classic desktop is not going away for a long time.

Personally I expect we will go through at least one generation of "crossover" apps, i.e. classic apps that are themed to blend into Metro styling to some degree - established developers are going to test the waters first, whether Microsoft likes it or not.

When is the Modern Reader app that they talked about going to be ready? I have Windows 8 installed on an ExoPC tablet. It would actually be useful with that app.

It is hardly useless though. You can still run regular Windows apps. For example, I can run Putty to SSH into remote machines, use FoxIt to read PDFs, surf the web with both Firefox and IE, and a number of other things. Metro is pretty much sitting there doing nothing though.

Still not massively sold on the metro idea, i think it will work great for touch screens but for standard desktops/laptops im not to sure.

When i tried the Developer preview i found the switch from the metro start menu to the app/desktop too jarring as if i had been hit across the back of my head. If they want the metro start menu to succeed i think they will need to work a lot on the transition system.

Overall im quite excited to try the consumer preview. I love some of the low level changes such as improved storage / filesystem (which will be server only), like the idea of hyper-v in the client and the new explorer enhancements.

I don't think we'll ever see full blown metro apps, even major .net apps are pretty low on the ground after 11 years, even microsoft's own apps are not .net yet (Office etc..) I think metro will stay in the realm of smaller quick use apps, such as weather, twitter/facebook clients etc.. sort of how apple wanted the use of widgets in OSX.

"If they don't, this release will be entirely useless to anyone who uses computers beyond Facebook, weather applications, and Twitter."

Actually, it's quite useless from the start and I think it will stay in that shape, mostly because of UI [Metro].
Metro seems to be terribly rediculous joke that developers make of users treating them as monkeys [no offense, monkeys!] and giving them another FISHER-PRICE interface ... [and I thought they gave up on this with LunaXP, but no ... it actually became worse].

Fortunately, I am not using their products anyway, but I am waiting eagerly for the userbomb to explode - I don't think users will feel at home with this new UI.

Firstly while Luna looked awful, it worked exactly like Win95, which the exception of the new start menu.

If a developer lets me use their application in a simpler way, I think it is a good Idea.

I think a lot of people like to stroke their own ego, because they can use a complicated application ... they think that makes them l33t.

Guess what learning mechanically how to use a complicated system doesn't make you clever, it makes you a trained monkey. A trained monkey of a clever system.

Handbrake for example, is a complicated piece of software with many options.

However the chap at work that needed to rip a company DVD to iPad format, figured out how to rip it to the iPad quickly after installation of Handbrake and VLC ... you know why ... because the developer(s) was kind enough to have the iPad settings as a clear preset presented to the user.

He was happy, my MD was happy he got the vid to work on his iPad ... and I got scored some brownie points.

If a software manufacturer cares about its users they strive for the simplest interface ... not scorn it.

I would like to clarify that I have nothing against simplicity. However, I think simplicity has two forms:
1. simplicity of architecture [clear code, "elegant" implementation]
2. simplicity of usage [usually refers to UI]

I really like simplicity of code and configuration - whether it's GUI, or text file.
What I don't like is "dumbed-down" kind of simplicity, where someone went way too far in "making it simple", so it is not simple anymore: you can't find configuration, you can't handle windows separately, you can't DO YOUR WORK, because someone has "an unusal" vision of what simplicity is.

The thing is - many people were saying basically the same ("dumbing down" and so on) thing about DOS -> Windows transition (text -> GUI in general).
Yeah, releasing Windows 8 Consumer Preview at Mobile World Congress can raise some eyebrows - but ultimately Microsoft seems quite good at keeping their vast desktop user base satisfied (unlike Linux - UI of which is in at least comparable turmoil now)

It's still quite unpolished for end users to be dealing with, yet they're pushing it out as a consumer preview. That gives me this sinking feeling that Redmond thinks this is near the real release state of the product. Either that or they're setting themselves up for Longhorn part 2 (or should that be part 3?).

But yeah, I'm sure this one might really be the chance of Linux desktop (like it was supposed to be with Vista, and previously with win9x) - especially since Linux will now offer wonderful UIs of Unity or Gnome3, which do listen to users!

Seriously, whether or not Metro direction will prove fruitful is an open question (yes it is, this one's just the first attempt; though releasing Windows 8 Consumer Preview at Mobile World Congress is... telling), but ultimately Microsoft - not Linux (UI of which is in at least comparable turmoil now) - has a vast desktop user base to caress, one seemingly generally satisfied.